Off and Running, Again
by betteroffred
Summary: Stormer has an idea or two about how to get the Misfits away from Stinger Sound, but will Pizzazz go for it? Not sure if this is finished yet or not. Contains some bad language, virgin ears beware!beta'd by Stormkpr, many thanks!


The sound of shrieking made Stormer cringe. Familiar voice, familiar angry holler. Oh yeah, someone had pissed Pizzazz off royally, and the fact that all the noise was coming from Eric Raymond's office made it pretty evident who that unlucky someone was. She heard shattering glass and a door slam, and curiosity then got the better of her. An arm full of files in hand, Stormer dared to peek around the corner.

Pizzazz looked livid, her cheeks flushed, eyes furious. Stormer shrank back against the wall, hugging her manuscripts to her chest. When Pizzazz was on a rampage it was usually better not to get in her way. The green-haired singer breezed past muttering curses under her breath and, despite her better judgment, Stormer followed.

"Pizzazz? What happened?"

The leader of the Misfits reeled on her, cold fury dancing in her eyes. "Ooh, that creep Eric! I can't believe that man! And Riot! I swear to god, if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to, to..." Pizzazz let out a blood-curdling shriek and kicked over a chair that sat innocently in the hallway. "I can't take it anymore!"

Stormer gulped. "Uhm... Let's get out of here, huh?"

She gunned her bright red Porsche through a series of corners, feeling every bit the race car driver and loving the way the tires hugged the road. It was a Misfit trait, she mused, each and every one of them loved their cars fast.

"Then, THEN he said that he'd let us OPEN for them! US! Opening for the Stingers! Ha!" Pizzazz hadn't stopped ranting since they'd left the building.

Stormer just let her talk, keeping her eyes on the road. It wasn't like the singer would listen to her if she told her to put a sock in it, anyway, and she was genuinely interested in what had transpired during the business meeting.

"And the worst part is they've got us under contract. We don't have a choice. And that JERK Riot was sitting there purring out all these demands like he was asking me for favors! Like I don't know what he's doing! That WITCH Rapture just sitting back there laughing, I'd like to strangle her!" Pizzazz panted, furious. "Laughing at me. Laughing! AT ME!" Her voice wavered just slightly and she pounded the dash with a fist.

"Hey! Not the car!" Stormer shot the singer an annoyed look.

Pizzazz ignored her. "I'm so sick of it, Stormer. If it wasn't for us, that jerk Eric wouldn't have a career. I'm sick of being treated like a joke by those idiot Stingers. I'm sick and tired of being treated like second best! I'm SICK and TIRED of Riot treating me like--" She choked back the words and groaned in disgust, sniffled.

Stormer didn't know what to say. Like all of the other Misfits, Pizzazz wasn't normally one to open up. She was angry and upset, not that Stormer could blame her. Eric was a Grade-A sleaze and Riot had used Pizzazz's infatuation with him for all it was worth. Everyone knew that every time the jerk had struck out with Jem that Pizzazz had been his go-to girl, his second in line. He had used the singer for her money, for her influence in the industry, for sex, for god knows what else, and at first Pizzazz hadn't cared. Love made people do crazy things. Thankfully, Pizzazz had gotten over him... mostly. Stormer knew it hadn't been quite that easy, but things had definitely improved since Pizzazz came back to the Misfits. At least she saw Riot for the creep he was, even if she still had it bad for him.

Pizzazz stared out at the beach as they zoomed past. "I'm so mad at Daddy for selling Misfit Music to Eric. It's like he doesn't even care what this is doing to me." The singer laughed then; it struck Stormer as a sickly-gasping sound. Pizzazz ran a hand through her wild hair. "Who am I kidding? He doesn't even know what's going on at Eric's office. He wouldn't care, either, as long as it was turning a profit."

"Oh, Pizzazz, that's not true... Your father cares about you; he just doesn't know how to show it," Stormer said in a soft voice, eyes wide with concern. She glanced at the road and when she glanced back Pizzazz had covered her face with her hands and was sobbing. "Oh! Oh no, Pizzazz, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to... crap, let me pull over."

She found a shoulder on the road overlooking the ocean and killed the engine. "Pizzazz?" Stormer ventured to lay a hand on the woman's shoulder.

Pizzazz brushed her away, pulling herself together quickly. "God, look at me. Crying like some god damned little kid." She forced a laugh and wiped her eyes, whipping her compact out of her purse to check her make up.

"It's ok... You're just under a lot of stress," Stormer sighed, leaning against the steering wheel. She wondered when the last time Pizzazz had gotten any sleep. The singer was usually pretty intense, but never like this.

"No, it's not ok. Getting worked up over a couple of losers like Eric and Riot is definitely NOT ok," Pizzazz laughed sadly again as she fixed her eyeliner.

Stormer watched her, worried, feeling horrible for the normally ferocious singer. It was hard to see Pizzazz this way, so... emotionally vulnerable and upset. Pizzazz was known for her temper tantrums; usually they were brief, fiery, and instigated by some minor irritation. This was completely different. Stormer didn't think she'd honestly seen Pizzazz so upset about anything, ever, since they'd met. "There's gotta be something we can do--"

"If there was, don't you think I'd be doing it?" The singer snapped her compact shut. "But we're under contract; a fact which they both like to rub my nose in every chance they get."

Stormer bit her lower lip. "Well... So what? If we quit, what are they going to do? Sue us? So we end up losing a few million, we'll make it back."

"It's not that easy, Stormer. Eric made sure of that when he transferred our contracts to the new company. There are so many loop holes- if we break our contract any profit we made on the next TEN albums we released would wind up in Eric's pocket, doesn't matter what label we put them out under." Pizzazz sounded miserable and angry. "I should have brought lawyers into it, had them negotiate a better deal for us. I should have... shit, I should have never listened to Riot!" She fairly sobbed the words. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes and she batted them away, turning from Stormer.

Stormer chewed her lower lip. "It's not your fault, Pizzazz. Any one of us could have spoken up, and we didn't, and the thing with Riot... you can't help who you fall for."

When all Pizzazz did was let out a ragged sigh instead of biting her head off and lecturing her about how she was too tough for all that mushy crap, Stormer was almost shocked.

"They've got us locked into this stupid deal doing jingles for some car company. They've got us lined up to OPEN for the Limp Lizards in a month. Our next five shows after that are on second stages on some crumby festival circuit and then they want us to open for the Stingers' tour. Can you believe that?" Pizzazz sniffled. The anger in her voice had been replaced by despair, and she was quiet when she spoke now. "They're going to run us into the ground and I don't know how to stop it. If we don't do it, they'll axe us for breach of contract. If we DO do it, it'll ruin our reputation. No one will ever take us seriously again."

Stormer shook her head. She had no idea it was that bad. It was worse than bad! It was horrible! It was also a really weird thing for Eric to do, weirder than normal. Would Eric Raymond REALLY make them do all that stuff? Sure, the Misfits had always been a pain in his ass, but he couldn't deny that the band raked in a fortune. Would he deliberately sabotage them like that? Maybe it was just a ploy to keep them in line? Stormer had no way of knowing for sure, but Eric wasn't dumb. Sleazy and underhanded, sure, but the guy had a mind for business. He was just as savvy as he was greedy. Destroying the Misfits would hurt him in the long run, he had to know that. But... If it was true, then Pizzazz was right, the junk Eric and Riot had lined up for them would ruin them as surely as a multi-million dollar lawsuit would. "Roxy and Jetta don't know yet?"

Pizzazz shook her head. "I just found out about it today. They're going to flip."

"Can't we... Oh god, I don't know, can't we quit and sue Eric for breach of contract? Mis-management or something? Have him brought up on fraud charges? Anything?"

"I've looked into the fraud thing. Since buying out Misfit Music, he's been totally on the up-and-up." Pizzazz leaned back in the leather bucket seat, resting her head against the cushion. She mulled over Stormer's suggestions. "Sue him for breach of conduct and mismanagement? I don't know... I can have my lawyers look into it. The mismanagement thing is dead on, anyway." She sighed again and shook her head. "It's something."

"What about..."

"What about what?' Pizzazz asked.

Stormer hesitated, unsure whether or not to tell Pizzazz her idea. Historically speaking, her ideas were not that popular with the singer. "Well, who owns the rights to the name Misfit Music?"

"Who owns it? The name?" Pizzazz shrugged. "No one. It was liquidated when Eric turned the company into Stinger Sound."

"Then... Ok, this might be a crazy idea, I mean, I don't know anything about running a business, but why don't we-- or you-- buy the copyright on it? Start a new business. Our own label."

Pizzazz snorted. "What would be the point? The Misfits are bound to Stinger Sound for the next two years, minimum."

"Yeah, but..." Stormer bit her lip nervously. "But I'm not. Not as a solo act, anyway."

"So what?"

"Ok, don't be mad at me... I wasn't going to tell you guys about this because I thought you'd laugh me out of the house..."

Pizzazz looked intrigued now, though a little bit irritated. "What did you do? You're NOT leaving the Misfits again." It was a command, not a question.

"No! Oh, no! No way!" Stormer smiled. "No, but I did sort of play this solo show over at the Lotus. In fact, that's why I was at the office today, gathering up some of my manuscripts to move them back to the mansion... Um, look, before you say anything, it was a one time only thing. I didn't do any kind of promotion for it because it's just this kind of... I dunno, like this experimental thing that I needed to do, you know?"

"You played solo at the Lotus? When?"

"Last night, actually."

"And you weren't going to tell any of us?" Pizzazz looked on the brink of being newly furious.

Stormer shook her head. "No... I didn't want anyone to know. I didn't know if I'd be able to do it if you guys showed up and heckled me-- and you would have, I know how much you guys love the stuff I did with Kimber."

"Ew, say no more. Bunch of mushy sensitive junk."

The synth player rolled her eyes and brushed the comment off. "And you wonder why I didn't say anything."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So how'd it go, you nit-wit." Pizzazz sat up, folding her arms.

"Oh!" Stormer laughed, blushing. "Well, I didn't do any kind of promotion for it--"

"So it was you and the bartender, huh?"

Stormer's eyes went wide. "You haven't heard!"

"Heard what? Stormer, I've been in a meeting all morning. Just cut the chase and tell me the damn story, will ya?"

"The Lotus is a pretty small venue, I think it holds at most two hundred people max, less that the Storehouse but not as much of a dive. Which are both good selling points, I didn't want to play somewhere huge OR quite so gross." She smirked. The Misfits used to play and hang out at the Storehouse entirely too much for her taste. "But, Pizzazz, there must have been almost a thousand people who showed up. The line was clear down the boardwalk and in the street, it was crazy."

Pizzazz didn't look like she was buying it. "You're serious?"

Stormer nodded. "They were turning people away at the door." She smirked suddenly. "LinZ Pierce showed up and interviewed me afterwards, I bet it'll be on VTV tonight."

"LinZ? But she hates the Misfits."

"Yeah, but she's interviewed me before, outside of the band," Stormer smiled impishly. LinZ might not have liked the Misfits, but she had nothing against Stormer. "Anyway, my point is, that many people showed up and I didn't even put an ad in the paper. Not a single flier on a phone pole, nothing. I didn't even know I was playing for sure until the night before. Gary, the guy who owns the Lotus said he put my name up on the dry-erase board for the weekly line ups as soon as I'd confirmed, but that's inside the bar. LinZ said something about hearing about it on K-JEM of all places, but I definitely didn't call them up to announce it on the air."

Pizzazz mulled this over, looking gravely serious.

"I told LinZ that it was just a one time thing, but she kept asking when I was going to put out a solo CD. Gary said people were asking if I had any merch for sale there. If I'd come with a crate full of CDs, he could have sold them all. Think about it, though, if I'd done some kind of promotion, picked a bigger venue..."

"You would have sold it out, too," Pizzazz finished the thought. The Misfits had always been wildly popular, but Stormer had her own, separate, set of followers. Not only did they like the Misfits, they'd adored the crap she'd done with Kimber, too. Stormer had always topped the list when it came to who was the most popular Misfit among the fans-- probably because she was the 'nice' one of the group. A wider audience could relate to her. Well, Pizzazz thought, that followed, most people were wimps. But when it came to record sales, that could only be a good thing. Stormer's fan base was already huge.

"Pizzazz, I've been thinking about it for a while now, but last night really settled it for me. I want to release a solo project. I've got a ton of material that's just sitting around doing nothing, and it's GOOD. It's not Misfit stuff, but its still really good," Stormer said, a worried thought crossing her mind that she must sound like an egomaniac. No, that wasn't it at all. This was sheer confidence in her ability shining through, and Stormer was owning it. "I don't want to do it on the Stingers label. I could do it on Starlight, I know Jerrica would let me, but--"

"Did they record the show?"

"Hm?"

Pizzazz's green eyes looked fiery and determined when they met Stormer's. "Last night, did they record your set?"

"Oh, yeah, of course." She dug through her purse quickly and pulled out a CD. "Here's a copy."

She handed it to Pizzazz. The singer took it out and popped it into the car's CD player.

It was the first chance that Stormer had had to actually listen to any of it, and it made her blush fiercely to do it with Pizzazz in the car with her. She'd have liked to had a chance to hear it alone first. Everyone she'd talked to had said she'd sounded great, she didn't know if she'd really believe it until she heard the playback for herself. That, and the Misfits had always hated her more emotionally-driven songs. She was nervous to hear Pizzazz's reaction. Anxious, too, she was on pins and needles as Pizzazz pushed 'play'.

There were a few seconds of garbled screaming- the crowd must have been just as big as Stormer had let on by the sound of it- and then music. The opening riffs were bass-heavy and. Stormer's smoky voice came through clear as a bell. They sat in silence and listened through the first five songs, until in there was a break in the recording where Stormer had paused to speak to the audience briefly.

"Well?"

"You're fucking brilliant." Pizzazz hit the pause button. "If you ever tell anyone I just said that, I'll have to kill you."

"Gee... thanks?" Stormer was hesitant to laugh, but she was pretty sure that had been a compliment.

"No, I'm serious, Stormer. You're right, its not Misfit stuff, and it's still... Ugh, obnoxiously sensitive," Pizzazz said, running a hand through her hair. They'd only listened to five songs, but each of them was brutal in its own way, even the ones where the music had been up-tempo and playful. Stormer was hard on herself, and it showed in her lyrics. That kind of personal honesty and reflection, putting herself on display for people on an emotional level, it was something that Pizzazz would never have been able (or wanted) to do. Nor the other two Misfits. "Can't deny it's powerful stuff though. Not the kind of stuff I'd normally listen to, but the music is fantastic, even on a rough copy like this. You weren't playing your synth?"

Stormer shook her head. She was beaming; Pizzazz had never complimented her like that! Never! "The ones you heard were all on a grand piano. I use my synth on some of the later ones. On a few of them I played guitar."

Pizzazz's eyes lit up. "I have got to hear this. What track?"

Seventeen and everything after."

Pizzazz skipped forward. The music from one song faded out and instantly was cut in on by the fierce scratch of a guitar. There was some heavy synth in the background. "You programmed the synth part and played the guitar?"

Stormer nodded.

"What about the drums?"

"Uh, I did have a few people come and play back up for me... a couple friends I made from working with Kimber. Session musicians." She shrugged.

The song was rough and fast, but then it would cut into this delicate little bridge with just straight piano backing her vocals. It made the rest of the song sound that much more pissed off.

"You really meet some guy on a train?" Pizzazz snickered, asking about the lyrics.

Stormer shrugged again, blushing mildly. "Subway, actually, but lyrically it didn't work, so 'train' it was... Remember that trip to New York a few years ago? NOT the time that we toured there recently." Pizzazz raised an eyebrow and grinned.

"Ooh, this is great. You've got a whole naughty side that I never even knew about. What was the crowd like? In shock?"

Now Stormer laughed. "Hey, come on. I AM a Misfit, cut me some slack."

"It's a great song. I'd even listen to that one again, real gutsy stuff."

"What do you think about putting it out?"

"Are you kidding? It'd make a fortune. Gotta master all of it, maybe cut down the number of tracks..." Pizzazz popped the CD out of the player and put it back into its case-- and then slipped it into her purse without asking. "Eric will shit himself when he finds out about it."

"So that's a yes? You're gonna start up a new Misfit Music?" Stormer felt giddy. "You're gonna release my CD?"

"Well I'm sure as hell not letting that uppity bitch Jerrica put it out on Starlight," Pizzazz sneered. "I'm all the uppity bitch you can handle."

Stormer chuckled lightly. "And then some," she teased.

"First things first. I'm going to call my lawyers. ALL of them. There has to be some loop hole to get us out of our contract with Stinger Sound. Second, I'm going to talk to Daddy and see how much--"

"No. No way. Stop right there, Pizzazz." Stormer waved her off. "You can't bring your dad in on this. I mean it. Between the four of us, we've got more than enough disposable income to start this label up. We don't need his money to do it. And if... if it takes more than we've got, I'll put all the cash I make from my CD into it," she said, though part of her wondered if that was such a good idea. It was important to her, though. "But if you're gonna do this, make it yours. REALLY yours. I'll back you, I'm sure Roxy and Jetta will, too. If it means having a label of our own, free of Eric and the Stingers, you know they'll be behind it. Even if we have to start small, don't bring in any outside money on this. Trust me."

That was something to wrap her brain around-- the possibility of starting small seemed like science fiction to her. Pizzazz had always done everything larger than life or not at all. But as she listened, she knew Stormer was right. "When the hell did you get so damn cool?" She laughed, shaking her head. "Yeah... yeah..." She thought it over again. "You're right. Fuckin' A, you're right!"

Pizzazz breathed a sigh of relief, it felt like a weight was being lifted off her shoulders. "Do you know, for the first time in weeks, I feel like there's some hope? Stormer, do you know what this could mean for us? We're gonna have to work our asses off to make this work! And I'm glad! I'm fucking excited about the idea. Crazy!" She laughed, and fresh tears found their way to the edges of her eyes, but they were happy tears unlike before. Stormer laughed with her, glad to see her spirits raised. This was the Pizzazz she knew, the determined spit fire who didn't let anything stand in her way. And who knew, maybe it would be good for her to have to work hard at something rather than having it handed to her.


End file.
